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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors reported improved U.S. sales in July, kicking off what is expected to be one of the best months for industrywide sales over the last two years.

GM reported that overall sales gained 5.4% from a year ago. But sales for the four brands it continues to sell -- Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac, jumped 25% from a year ago. A 99% drop in sales at Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and Saab, the four brands it dropped as part of its bankruptcy reorganization of last year, was a drag on the overall sales performance.

"We think consumers are going to continue to be cautious, but all that being said, July was a solid month for us," said Don Johnson, vice president, U.S. Sales Operations

The sales gains were roughly in line with forecasts from sales trackers Edmunds and TrueCar. Those services, along with J.D. Power & Associates, all expect that the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate for the whole industry will come in close to 12 million vehicles in July. The first half of this year the annual sales rate has been just over 11 million vehicles.

Since the meltdown in financial markets and the U.S. economy in September 2008, a sales rate of nearly 12 million would be the second best month for sales, trailing only the spike that occurred in the Cash for Clunkers program in August 2009.

Other automakers, including Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) and Toyota Motor , are due to report results later Tuesday.

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BMW posted a second-quarter net profit of 834 million euros (1.1 billion dollars), compared with 121 million euros in the same period in 2009.

The results shattered the expectations of analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires, who had forecast profits of 674 million euros.

BMW's operating profit before interest and tax soared to 1.717 billion euros from just 169 million euros and the group reiterated its unit sales forecast of 1.4 million in 2010.

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But Daimler, which owns Mercedes Benz, has raised its core earnings outlook to six billion euros this year while Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car maker and Audi's parent group, plans to sell a record 6.3 million vehicles.

Audi expects to sell more than 200,000 cars in China, and top its 2008 record of one million vehicles worldwide.

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The German auto giant [VW], with total global revenues second only to Toyota, doubled its operating profit for the second quarter to nearly 2 billion euros. ...The company sold 3.58 million cars in the first six months of the year.

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